Part II: Tools for an effective follow-up and implementation cases can serve as evidence to support recommendations, and promote their implementation in the dialogue with the authorities, as well as the communication and cooperation with other actors and the NPM’s public relations. In order to avoid false expectations NPMs should have a clear policy and procedure on how to deal with individual complaints. Generally, but only if the alleged victims provides his/her authorisation, individual cases should be submitted to a body with the mandate to handle them, and followed up in order to protect victims from reprisals. In order to adequately deal with and use individual complaints in the follow-up process, NPMs should maintain a close cooperation with the relevant complaints mechanisms or the relevant department, in case of Ombuds institutions. While NPMs regularly receive individual complaints and requests during their visits to places of detention the OPCAT does not grant them the mandate to investigate individual complaints. Instead, they are meant to intervene preventively, before a violation has occurred (see also Part I, Chapter 3.1). NPMs need to make a decision as to how to deal with complaints and requests, e.g. to transmit them – with the informed consent of the victim and an adequate consideration of the risk of reprisals – to the responsible authorities, such as the relevant departments of Ombuds institutions, internal state complaint mechanisms and the police and prosecution. Individual cases received by an NPM may be useful in the follow-up process. A few NPMs consulted consider the number of complaints as an indication of systemic problems, possibly also a lack of implementation of recommendations and useful information for follow-up action. Thus, an analysis of the follow-up to the cases by the responsible bodies may provide useful information on the issue of impunity, remedy and reparation. For example in Austria individual cases received during the NPM visits and individual complaints to the Ombudsman Board are used to further examine whether these are systemic practices. They are not only followed-up by the Ombudsman Board under an urgent procedure to cease the violation and afford necessary protection but the Ombudsman Board has in the past also initiated additional followup action, including a survey on the scope of the problem and the establishment of a working group to develop a step-by-step plan to resolve the problem. Furthermore, individual cases can provide useful evidence to illustrate problems, support recommendations and promote their implementation in the dialogue with the competent authorities and the cooperation and communication with other actors as well as the NPM’s publicity strategy (see Part II, Chapter 3). A key consideration when dealing with individual cases always has to be a ‘do no harm approach’, focusing on the protection of the victim, including protection of the victim’s identity or from reprisals. Thus, NPMs should develop a clear policy and procedure to deal with individual cases received during visits. The policy and procedure should also be clearly explained to the complainants in order not to raise false expectations.173 Moreover, NPMs should closely cooperate with the independent complaints mechanisms in the country. How this is managed may depend on the relationship the NPM has with these mechanisms, including whether the NPM is itself embedded in an Ombuds institution that also has a mandate to receive and investigate individual complaints. Another possibility to follow-up on specific findings of the NPM through cooperation with the Ombuds institution would be the opening of inquiries by the Ombuds institution. For example, in Sweden out of 111 visits between 2011 and March 2015, 19 own-initiative inquiries were undertaken, three of them directed at the police and involving concerns that had been identified during a whole number of inspections of police stations. This approach is also being used by the Austrian Ombudsman Board. APT, Monitoring places of detention (2004). 173 - 61 -